Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through
Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast recorded with the unreserved approval
of all of our husbands and boyfriends.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Si, and I'm your mystery shopper for today in Adam Richards
vice.
Well, there's really only one show in the history of television
that would do an alien soldier mummy on the Orient Express in
space, and so naturally, that's what Doctor Who is doing this
week.
But will it be enough to keep Clara from leaving?
Let's find out as we discuss Mummy on the Orient Express.
So this is actually really good, isn't it?
Oh, yeah.
Mm.
And right from the very beginning, I think, so this is directed by
Paul, I want to say, Paul Wilmshurst.
Yes.
That's it.
So he's already done Killer Moon, which everyone thinks is
fantastic and we were unanimous in our praise of that.
So he did that and he'll come back for last Christmas, but this
has a really, really striking opening, doesn't it?
And it does something that Doctor Who, I think, has never, ever
done before, which is that on screen, countdown, which I just
think is so amazing and so brilliant, because it's like an old
fashioned sort of cyberpunk thing.
You know, it's got the rolling numbers.
It's not stupid or digital or sort of matted on.
It's like it's a bit of a machine.
And I'm not quite sure why we're suddenly allowed to do this on
Doctor Who, but I'm awfully glad that we are.
What I loved about the countdown was that it fitted the setting.
It felt like it belonged on the Orient Express.
So it wasn't out of place at all.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And I thought this sort of thing, you were only allowed to do it
if you were projecting numbers onto Louise Pedro's face.
Yes, but they were diagetic.
Yeah.
Hi, Louise.
But I mean, the whole look of it is pretty amazing, isn't it?
And I guess it comes to us via Voyage of the Damned, and it's sort
of basically the same idea.
Although I think this is Earth future or something, not that we
really care at all.
I think Mrs. Pitt very early on says, is this a fancy dress night
and she's told, no, it isn't, even though everyone's dressed like
it's the 1920s and they're on BRA Express.
So it's all terribly silly.
And in the 1st version of me actually saying this, which we've
carefully edited out, I suddenly saw Richard leaning over saying, I
don't know what happens to girls like you, Dangria Lally's down at
Maiden's point. at this time of an evening.
I had literally never known that.
And I actually copied the cast list off the time. page into my
notes and didn't even notice Janet Henfrey's name.
You know what's so freaky?
She looks exactly the same.
Yeah, well, she's got that.
Yeah, she has that life preserver thing under a chair. those
bandages stretch a long way, don't they?
And she'll continue looking exactly the same for Sill, the devil
seeds of Arador in a few years.
Well, that's tremendous.
That's made my evening.
I don't think we even need to talk about this.
I thought this was a suburb episode and now it's got N-free in
it.
I don't think it could be possibly any better.
It's a pretty incredibly well-directed and beautifully done pre
credit sequence.
Yeah.
I'm just imagining, you know, Janet Henry gets the script and it's
like the undead monster touches her face and she died.
Oh, not again.
She's really good.
I desperately hope Andy Pryor like picked her because he loved her
work in Curse of Fenrick and just thought, yeah, she's perfect for
me.
I shall have her.
That's glorious. so good This episode and Flatline are double
banked, which is why Clara spends half of this episode locked in a
room and the doctor will spend half of an episode locked in a room
next week.
Originally, you know, Clara gets teleported to a pyramid and put
into a sarcophagus and wrapped in similar photohole bandages and
there were a whole bunch of foretolds and what have you.
And a bit like, we'll hear next week.
Stephen Moffat said, okay, Jamie, this is great, but television
doctor in your budget.
Smaller.
No, we're not going to crash the train into a planet.
It's actually amazingly simple and straightforward, isn't it?
It really is exactly what it says on the tin.
And the monster is fantastic.
I mean, it's just beautifully well designed.
The performance is really great.
It's properly terrifying and it kills what 5 people, 4 or 5 people
during the course.
It felt like it should have been the Christmas special or a part
of one of the Christmas things anyway.
And as you say, like a big box of McRobinson's quality street and
a reassuring amount of old people die, which is just what you
often want at Christmas.
Well, I mean, it does have that sort of voyage of the damned thing
about it.
And obviously the idea of the Orient Express in space is an idea
that Moffatt had burned up once before at the end of Big Bang.
And he does have a line of dialogue in here to kind of make that
okay and like whatever.
I'm sure that that's fine.
But was it an Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express last time?
That's right.
Yeah.
Who had broken out and was, yeah, he was supposed to go off and
investigate that.
There was a sort of a feeling that that was going to be the
Christmas special for Matt's 1st Christmas special for a little
while and then a Christmas carol happened instead and it was just
never followed up on.
So to finally sort of get here, felt like it'd been a long time
coming and they're actually going to do it.
Okay, this is great.
You know, it's absolutely impossible for me to imagine that a
Christmas carol is the only thing that Moffatt ever imagined doing
for his 1st ever Christmas special and that he'd been dreaming of
doing it since he was five.
Like it's, uh, it's so exactly what you would expect him to do.
But, you know, Moffat is a big one for recycling his own ideas. and
I'm absolutely happy that he's done that here.
It does make me wonder though, given that we know what does happen
immediately after the Big Bang, what was it exactly that
distracted the doctor?
Because we know what happens in those bunk beds immediately after
the big bank.
Yes, we do know that.
So do you think there was sort of banging on the walls of his
bedroom and...
He thinks a solenoid needs realigning and so he goes and tinkers
with something and they end up on the planet Christmas.
No.
No, Christmas is...
Christmas is...
Sonic Town. that's right They end up on a futuristic Stephen
Moffatt planet that is Christmas themed.
Yes, exactly.
One of many.
Of course, what it does give is a really good chance for Capaldi
and Jenna Coleman to dress up beautifully. doesn't Jenna look
amazing in the 20s style clothing?
And the beautiful, her hair looks amazing.
And Capaldi is looking very pert we season seven, particularly the
bow tie, and the very dark clothing, and they both look absolutely
like they belong in this space.
It's wonderful.
For me, I think maybe the most interesting thing about this, and
we're going to say something fairly similar next week, I think
probably, is that although this has a strong monster and a strong
mystery and works very well as a Doctor Who story, the other thing
that it does very well is to carry on what we've been doing over
the past few weeks with the Doctor and Clara's relationship.
And we said last week that that scene where Clara breaks up with a
doctor is magnificent, like just a beautifully acted scene from
Jenna.
And I really think that they deal with it perfectly.
So some time has passed.
We don't have to see the immediate fallout of that, but it has had
fallout and they've decided that this is the end, that they're
just going for one last adventure before saying goodbye.
And I think that it sold really well.
There's that great conversation quite early on where the doctor
wants to talk about planets and the planet that's made of shrubs
and all of that sort of thing.
And Clara wants to talk about their relationship, um, which is a
very sort of, it's very moffety, isn't it?
That kind of conception of relationships between men and women.
Yeah, so I think we're in a situation where Jamie Matheson either
knows Moffat's obsessions very well or is being nudged in that
direction by Moffat.
But I think it works really well.
Like I really properly buy that and I'm glad that that had a
proper outcome and that it was properly picked up.
What I loved was they both absolutely desperate to have an
adventure, but neither of them want to be the one to say, let's
just go with this and let's get swept along with it.
And there's all that sort of unspoken tension and the fact that
they're both creeping off to investigate stuff behind each other's
backs because they want to know what's going on.
It's a very dysfunctional relationship because they can't actually
talk to each other in the way that they desperately need to.
And so all of this is going on all the time and it sort of comes
to a head right at the end of the story when Clara gives in and
says she's she's on board, she's coming for the adventure, like it
or not.
She's she's there.
But this is sort of them both working that out.
In fact, does Clara react badly to the discovery that the doctor
knew that something was going on here, that he'd been invited here
before.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
She's like, you knew this was a thing.
And he says, well, hoped.
But something I really love about that early discussion.
When he's talking about the planets, it's not the Florana speech.
It's just him sharing this stuff he finds really fascinating.
He's a little kid showing off his rock collection in that moment.
And I think that is why Clara then opens up about how she's
feeling because she gets that, you know, the doctor is expressing
his emotions in the way he can and then he's really
uncomfortable.
He's like, can I talk about the planets again now?
because that's very, that's coming back too.
And she rewards, yes, you can.
You've listened to my girl stuff and now we'll go back to the
planets.
I love the line wage.
He's looking at the black hole.
He just turned around and says, I remember when all this was
planned.
And those are brilliant.
So this is the thing where Clara discovers that she actually can't
do without the giant adventures and without the, and it's not, it's
not, she doesn't express it in terms of planets and creatures and
things, the way that Rose might have described her time with a
doctor, what she likes is the being able to make the big
decision.
Like, there's a kind of moral hazard that she finds attractive.
And you remember that she says to the doctor, you know, do you
love it?
Do you love being the person who gets up and makes that decision
who makes that bad decision?
And, you know, because he's never given it up.
And so that's what she's here for.
And I think by the end of the story, she's not staying there
because she loves the doctor.
She's staying there because she loves the stuff, the stuff that
happens.
And she absolutely lies to the doctor about why she's there.
And even lies by saying that it was Danny's idea that they stopped
seeing one another.
Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it?
Because she's the one who's called the doctor out for lying all
the way through this adventure.
She is really on that and pulling him up on that all the time, and
then she does the ultimate lie at the very end because she can't
give this up, as she said, is it like an addiction?
And for Clara, I think from this point onwards, it really is. is
something she has to do.
She can't she can't stop.
Is that the ultimate lie, though, Si?
I thought you were going to say, and that was a really interesting
thread for me.
I thought you were going to say, she behaves as the moral compass
of the show, not just for the doctor, his caretaker, in other
words, and she's nominated, but she actually declares that the
whole reason she wants to leave is that he does not display a
moral human, so-called centre, and then she lies to a woman to
drag her to her death because it will precede the narrative.
Yeah, he gets her to do it and she blames him for doing that.
And that's the point is that she is all ego and he is all child
whatever else.
And I'd love to touch on the ASD autism spectrum disorder thing.
I have a friend who has all of this and I've been learning about
that this year and watching Capaldi.
I haven't shown him yet because he refuses to watch anything with
egg cartons and silver paint.
And he's got no manners anyway, and he knows who we are. talking
about.
It's true.
But, I mean, what a rude thing to say.
But the point is, I have seen reflections of that, and I think
Capaldi's betrayal of the doctor is just extraordinary spot on
knowing people with the similar thing.
But even so, there is still that sense of morality and knowing
truth.
And then Clara, centre of the moral universe, goes and fricking
lies because, well, you tell me why she does it.
Well, I mean, I think that she, look, this is in some senses a two
parter, because Matheson writes both of them, and we're at a
crucial point in the overall arc of the series.
And the arc of the series isn't missy and the never sphere, the
arc of the series is this relationship between Clara and the
doctor, complicated by her relationship with Danny.
Moffatt's arcs aren't about key words or anything like that.
They're about relationships between the characters.
So she gets to play the doctor and lies.
So she says to Maisie, come to the, you know, the lab, we think
you're next, but we think we can save you.
And the doctor says that as well, the doctor makes her say that.
And there's something about that call that she likes having made.
And so next week we're going to see the situation, obviously, where
the doctor's indisposed and she has to play the role of the doctor
but there's a real consistency and theme between these 2 episodes
where the doctor's role is seen to be lying, even though it's for
the greater good.
And I think, I think, you know, within this episode, the doctor
gets saved morally by his preparedness to just take Maisie's to
take, yeah, you know.
So it was the next part I was trying to go to.
The doctor just says, no, I'll be Maisie and I'll take the attack
that's meant for her.
Exactly.
And when Clara plays the part of the doctor and performs that as
she does in each story this year, she still doesn't reach that
point, not to for me anyway, and I'm not going to jump ahead.
But you tell me what you all think.
I think she's falling short.
And I think that's exactly how Moffatt succeeds so well with his
writing for others than the doctor.
I can't say companions anymore.
I don't know what the term is anymore. caretakers, but he does, he
really, by pushing all of Clara's faults up to the front and
centre of the screen, I guess we come to feel for her or love her
more or whatever else we do with these characters.
But I can't see Sarah Jane doing the same thing.
Yeah, I mean, on whom she's based, as we've discussed.
No, but I think that I think that the companions now are more
complex and more interestingly characterised than they were in the
classic series, the classic series.
You would have an outline and then the actor would bring their
performance.
The actors would do their stuff in rehearsal, which would make it
worse.
I can't see Clara taking being blind and pushed down a flight of
mediaeval stairs and taking that world.
No.
Well, I mean, she's not blind when Missy pushes her down that pit
but...
That's funny, though.
That is fair.
I mean, I mean, this laden falling down a gentle incline is also
funny, but for different reasons.
That's true. that's true This actually reminds me of something I
wanted to mention this episode because, dear, this is the way we
sort of record these is we do a batch and then we start
releasing.
So at the time of recording, I think I've done Listen and Kill the
Moon so far, this series, I hadn't yet heard the 1st 2 episodes in
which the panellists discuss the doctor mugging poor Brian Miller
and stealing his coat.
However, I would like to point out a line of dialogue. where Clara
asks the doctor where his pocket watch is.
He exchanges the pieces for the coat.
He's lying I think we're meant to play, he's lying.
So yeah.
So that's another thing too.
So we did talk about that in deep breath, where there are 2
crucial moments where the doctor beats up Brian Miller and takes
his code and the other one where he pushes the half-faced man out
of the out of the restaurant to his death.
And we don't see either of them happen, which means to some degree
we're being asked to decide what we think happens.
Not even Missy, who's watching the episode, gets to see what
happens.
She doesn't know either whether the doctors push the half-faced
manner out of the door.
And I think because we conclude that the watch thing is a lie to
cover the fact that the doctor beat up Brian Miller and took his
coat.
That crimes us to think that he did push the guy out the window.
Now, what is it that we're prevented from seeing this time?
What we prevented from seeing is what happens after Clara passes
out and while she's unconscious?
Yeah.
And the fact that Perkins is alive at the end suggests that the
doctor is telling the truth, but I think the reason that scene is
so uncomfortable is that the doctor actually says, oh, you know, I
rescued everyone and then he says, oh, no, I just let them all
suffocate. ha ha.
And Clara doesn't even push back because she is now so on board
that maybe she doesn't care so much.
There is something really, really uncomfortable about that
choice.
And we're all allowed to fill it in with the idea that the doctor
did just do what he said, you know, but we're not permitted to see
that.
It never happens on screen.
Yeah, I think, I think, though, what sort of mollifies that is the
doctor explains that the reason he was so cruel about getting
Clara to bring Maisie is because it's been established that Gus is
monitoring the phone calls.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, no, but he also needed to her to be in the lab so that they
could get the telemetry or whatever by observing another death.
Oh, totally.
But if it had gone after Maisie and she wasn't in the lab, she
would have died.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
And there's the line, isn't there?
where the doctor says sometimes the only choices you've got are
bad choices, but you still have to choose.
And so he has his moral compass.
And he said, this is for the greater good.
This is to save the few people who are still alive.
And he says I would have kept sacrificing person after person
after person to get the answer so that I could rescue whoever was
left.
So he does have a moral compass.
It might be an uncomfortable moral compass, but it is there.
You see, I think that what's central to the problem is that the
doctor lies. and the thing that makes it seem that he's doing a
terrible thing is when he gets Clara to lie to Maisie to say the
doctor can save you.
And so he lures her into the lab with sort of false hope.
And so when you look at it just from a pure body count point of
view, it's fine.
The doctor's, what the doctor does is probably morally obligatory
he probably has to do that.
It's the right thing to do, but is just giving people false hope
is lying to people all the time the right thing to do.
And I think that characterising the doctor and Clara's
relationship is being about being furtive and lying and not
telling each other the truth, culminating in just a big massive
lie that Clara tells the doctor at the very end, you know, that's
interesting, and it's something that Moffat's doctor has been
doing for a long time.
Offence doctor lies about why he takes Amy on board.
He's interested in the crack, but he tells her some story.
You know, he doesn't tell her about her pregnancy.
Moffatt's doctor is a liar and that's what we're looking at here, I
think.
I just had Tom Baker's voice in my head for some reason.
Well, of course, the doctor is a liar.
He doesn't read the script pages.
He's not in.
You can't know these things.
But like for me, you know, the best version of the grumpy
problematic doctor is always my go-to, which is Tom in horror fang
rock, you know, because he's really, really horrible to all of
those people. and really kind of contemptuous of them, even as
he's trying to save them.
But he doesn't do to them what he does here in this story. you
know, like that, but at the end where um, Leila asks what's
happened to skin sale and he just says died with honour.
And it's a sort of throwaway line, but here you get Capaldi, who
is kind of openly contemptuous about people dying like he is in
Into the Dalek, and kind of like he is with the professor here
where he can't save the professor.
He doesn't intend to save the professor.
He's just going to get as much information as he can off the
professor and he just openly says that to him and fails to
empathise in any way with him about his impending death.
So he's worse, I think. than Tom then.
I'm glad you mentioned the professor because his relationship with
the professor and his relationship with Captain Quell is very
interesting because with Captain Quell, he's super dismissive on
him.
Captain Quayle is the one that believes the doctor is a mystery
shopper until he arrests him. which I'm sure a lot of retail
people want to do with mystery shoppers.
But him being dismissive of Captain Quell does have some little
barbs in there about soldiering again.
Yeah, yeah.
Whereas, yeah, whereas Professor Morehouse, which along with
Maisie is a name that was originally dropped from Flatline, which
was written before this.
Um, with Professor Morehouse, like the professor is a fellow
academic.
So he's sort of chummy, chummy, chummy.
But during the death scenes, Professor Morehouse is useless
whereas Captain Quell reports until the very last 2nd because he
understands how important the information is.
And the doctor is actually chastened by Perkins when the doctor
starts jumping around and doing his rationalisation thing and
Perkins is like, he's just died, you know, and I just found that
so interesting that the doctor, again, is siding with an academic
over a soldier and dismissing the soldier, but it's actually the
soldier who is the more noble character in that moment of death.
So he's properly redeemed, isn't he?
So this is David Bamba who always plays kind of Weasley
characters.
So he's, you know, Cicero in Rome and his Mr. Collins famously in
Pride and Prejudice.
And so he is kind of pathetic. but he is redeemed, isn't he?
By the way that he faces his death.
And, you know, he even feels redeemed.
Like he feels like he's somehow paid for being quite so pathetic
early on.
So I think he's really terrific.
And that is another thing as well, because one of the things about
this series is the soldier thing, and the number of aliens that
are soldiers, so the mummy is a soldier, the Skovox blitzer is a
soldier.
In both cases, the doctor defeats the monster by responding to it
as a soldier, whether it's the enemy who surrenders or the
commanding officer who tells him to stand down.
And I am still not sure that this whole soldier thing works or
what the intention of it is or where it's going or why it's
suddenly here, but it is striking that you've got 2 soldiers here
the mummy and Quell.
And you might add the doctor, at least in the way he plays that
scene, is a very understanding person of authority.
I mean, that's exactly how an officer is supposed to.
Yeah, and yeah, and Danny kind of accuses him of being like an
officer in caretaker.
Exactly. and you are a good dalek.
This is a whole series of mirrors and opposites and similarities.
So Clara is actually the anti-doctor.
By now we're seeing all the flaws that she's pointed out in this
doctor are actually her own, a whole lot of projection and
reflection.
I should mention that David Bamber also played Hitler in was it
Brian Singer?
Anyway, in Valkyrie.
Did anyone watch camping, Julia Davis's camping?
Because he was, oh, God, it's the darkest thing.
You think 90 90 is dark.
And he plays Noel.
So that would be my pick of the week for tragic circumstances.
But yeah, he always has that gorgeous soft face that looks like
you just want to squish it in and put a currant in it, don't you?
Glaze it.
It's really odd because he turned up recently in an episode of
Endeavour, which is the Inspector Morse prequel that we've got in
the UK, and he looks exactly like Staff Sergeant Arnold from the
web of fear in that day, a police officer.
He has turned into what's his face, whose name has now...
Jack Walgart.
He has absolutely the great big bushy sideburns the whole lot.
It was wonderful to see.
That's glorious. so good Also in the cast.
I'd like to mention, as the, as I previously mentioned, Professor
Morehouse, who is Christopher Villiers, with a long acting career
one of the early roles of which was in Doctor Who, the King's
Demons.
Yes, he played the sarcophagus, no.
Yes, he was huge.
There was one in that as well.
Yes, he was huge.
He's lost his hair.
He's lost his highlights in the years.
Really serious highlights, did he?
We all, yeah.
The mediaeval times, they were quite impressive. was the 80s.
Yeah, Gene Marsh just occasionally run those fingernails through.
Phileas has had a great career too, but Emmerdale, he was in
Emmerdale.
I think that's where he made his big name, isn't it?
We didn't really see it here.
Asach, but he's the descendant of the 1st Earl of Clarendon, isn't
he?
Oh there you go.
Yes.
So, you know, love I love it when they crawl up from the depths
and make it on the turtle.
I mean, also in the cast, we've got Frank Skinner.
Yes.
The biggest doctor fan of all time, allegedly.
It's a very interesting performance from Frank Skinner, isn't it?
Because he starts off. playing himself.
Yeah, because he starts off almost a bit sinister and a bit too
knowing and a bit too, I know.
Like I said.
And then he sort of, but it's quite a naturalistic performance and
quite flat in lots of ways as well.
And I can never quite get a handle on whether it's a really great
performance and he's really sort of inhabiting the character and
it being, or he's just not very good.
Have you heard his radio stuff site?
There's a really gorgeous thing on BBC 4, probably 4 extra now
that our Antipodines listen to because there's no longer an
outpost sharder, darn it.
And that's, um, and that's Frank Skinner's.
Oh, it's look, you can Google it.
It's one of those things where he does it, the worst of the
world.
It's like Charlie Brooker's stuff.
But that is him, and that is his tone, and his cynicism and his
dryness, and his stand-up as always, and he was a pretty big stand
up guy, you know, of a decade or so ago.
He was yeah.
I think that final scene where with just him and the doctor.
Yeah, and it's obviously important because it's telling us that
the doctor was telling the truth.
But it also does talk about the cost.
There's some kind of subtext about the cost of doing what it is
the doctor does.
And it's kind of like a throwaway line about, you know, if I was
to hang around down under your console and fix it.
That's the sort of thing that would take forever and doing that
would change a man.
And Capaldi makes some gag about regeneration, like, but there is
something just at the very end about the cost of being the doctor
I think.
And yeah, like I think that that's, that he's, he's reasonably
good.
What we do have as well is John's session.
Oh yes, is gust.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, it's on the list.
The late great John Sessions.
What do you mean late?
Don't tell me.
I didn't realise we had lost it.
Yeah, in a while ago.
In the last 12 months, I think.
Because I listened to him on BBC 4 as we're entertained by the
dead, as Nathan went off and said, all the time. have you seen his
screen test for the 8th doctor?
Oh, no, really?
Really?
You haven't seen it?
It's fantastic.
And that's, and you know, he did the, he did the audio death comes
to time.
I think it led on, apart from the fact that he's known as it, not
only, he's he almost, whatever, spectrum, but he's genius at
recollection, he's always winning quiz shows for his knowledge of
the classics and for British literature, but he's also, um
fantastic for voices and he could do anybody. so to speak.
And they often did.
It's the theatre after all.
But he's his death comes to time performance is fantastic, but
honestly, please have a look at his screen test.
You think, you should have been a doctor.
Like, it's a very strange sort of performance.
It is only the voice, but it's not treated in any way.
It does, so it's not a computer voice.
It just sounds like a person's voice.
And the symbol appears to be a monocle.
Is that right?
As if he's like Gus is an older guy who's wearing a monocle and
that's sort of trying to characterise him in some way.
We never find out who that is and that's okay, right?
Is that okay?
Yeah, that's absolutely fine.
I think it was cited by a lot of fans at the time of, oh, well, who
was behind this?
What was this?
This is a big problem, but actually, it doesn't really matter
unless it was going to be a big thing later on.
It doesn't matter at all.
It's something that happened.
And I love the way that Gus has spent lots of time trying to get
the doctor interested and get him on the ship to try and sort this
out sort of over the years, which is great.
No, he did the phone call at the end of the Big Bang.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think he's the Rani.
You know, the Rani's obviously regenerated into gust.
That seems perfectly reasonable and consistent with the theme of
the season as a whole.
Yeah.
I believe that thanks to Fox's performance of don't stop me now
that this may be the only televised Doctor Who to feature the term
sex machine.
Yeah, although...
Yeah, Billy and Sir Charles and the War Machines.
I mean, it got very heated.
That's war machine.
That's your version.
Look, I think it's almost certain to happen again in series 14.
So you don't get too excited.
Well, yeah, we've all seen that tailoring.
Exactly.
Oh my goodness, Jenna, in your tiny little tableau, our thing that
you're wearing that looks like it's been nicked off an altar and
just thrown off.
It really does.
I can't...
There's not a lot.
There's not a lot of mystery and that said as game and sitting
here.
Imagine how the little straight boys in the audience were managing
it.
Si, I want to know what you think if you're an Avengers fan like
what Brandy and I are.
But I just keep looking at her thinking, there's the new Emma
Peel.
There's the new appeal.
No, she'd be Perth.
She looks like a young rig.
And, you know, it's from the same part of the UK.
I just know that she would have loved to toss all of these men off
her shoulder. and do it adroitly and with great elan and I think
you know, great satisfaction hearing their spines crunch as they
hit the deck of the train.
Yeah, this sounds almost exactly like the...
No, the tag for this week's episode of Flight 3 and Time.
Oh, really?
Which you forgotten recording, but was all of that.
Yes.
It's a good point.
Except it was her beating up Ben Miller, which would be even more
satisfying.
Never say no, never say no.
Is she underserved here?
I got a sense of the, you know, to, again, to step outside, the
actor herself is somewhat frustrated, but I don't think there's
any reason to be because, you know, this is what the show does.
I think she had an incredible thing last week and I think that she
has a really central role here that gives her proper things to
do.
Okay.
And, you know, like companions who complained about falling over
and screaming at the monsters and all of that sort of thing.
Like she doesn't really do any of that.
It is all about her relationship with Danny, her relationship with
the doctor.
It's something interesting and also the moral peril that she's in
by admiring the doctor and wanting to be the doctor.
No, and even when she's locked up, she's still got lots of agency
and she's still investigating and she's still working things out.
So she does the whole thing with the sarcophagus, which is vital
to what's coming as well.
So it's that missing piece of the puzzle for the doctor.
So it's not like she's, she's just sat in a cell whimpering.
She's she's investigating and she's helping Maisie through that
whole thing as well.
That's great.
That's sarcophagus, isn't it?
Because you think it's generating them, mommy. she's just popping
the bubble wrap.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're supposed to put the mummy in it once they catch it.
Yeah, brilliant.
Yeah, I think I think in terms of Jenna's ability.
Like, she's definitely a lead.
Oh, yeah.
I get the feeling that in order to keep her, they give her a
really interesting arc this year.
And then she asks to stay on and Stephen Moffatt and Peter Cabell
to go, of course, you know, the wisdom of that decision we'll
discuss next season.
But it's kind of like when you have someone that good and they
want to stay, you don't want to let them go.
And at the same time, I feel like to want to stick around, she
must have been for the most part satisfied with the material.
And of course, we've seen since then she's gone from strength to
strength.
She came out here and did that that miniseries that was amazing
and right now I think she's on stage in the West End, as we
record.
Um, she's kind of got that quality where, you know, with modern
Doctor Who, we've said it before, the companion is a co-lead to
the series, but they are still 2nd billing.
Yeah, yeah.
And she will get topbelling this year.
I think Murray Gold's having a really good week this week and is
taking his cues from Christopher Gunning's schools for Poirot.
So he's really...
He's really hits it.
So it doesn't feel like a Murray gold score.
It feels like an ITV's Agafa Christie's score.
So it feels slightly, slightly up above what he's usually doing.
So I think it really fits the setting and he really, he's having a
great week.
So true.
I love the Doctor Who's got to the point where they can just say
uh, it's in space and everyone's dressing like the 1920s and if
you don't like it or if you want an explanation, you can just get
staffed.
Exactly.
One of the scientists is just Albert Einstein.
That's the air.
Yeah, yeah.
And things like that. a little throwaway gadge.
I like the bald guy, the bald ginger guy with a big...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the hipster moustache should be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. brilliant.
One unfortunate thing that comes about when they condense the plot
and condense the characters is originally Maisie was a scientist.
Oh, okay.
And one of the researchers.
And while there are 2 women scientists, they don't get any
dialogue.
No.
Like all the other experts and men.
And again, I don't think it's a conscious thing because Maisie is
a strong role.
Clara has a strong role in this.
We'll have PC Forrest next week from Jamie Matherson, who's a very
quick role, but also a very strong role.
But yeah, it's it's a bit like the problems in the caretaker where
it seems like no one's thought about, Oh, actually maybe we need
to tweak this slightly.
In fact, next week, despite the detective constable, it's a very
male cast as well.
Yeah, yeah.
And I feel the need to mention this because Nathan, at the
beginning, you said, you know, Doctor's the only show where we can
have this mummy in space and it's actually assault, da da.
And I always feel the need to mention Babylon 5 so that Nathan can
say.
I've never heard of it.
Right.
So the 1st proper episode of Babylon 5 in production, which ended
up being the 4th broadcasting is an episode called Infection, where
none other than Dave McCallum, a.k.a. um, brings aboard an alien
artefact which turns uh, someone into an alien undead super
soldier fighting a long forgotten war who is defeated by being
told that the war is over. and self-destructs.
Wow.
And Jamie Matheson is a Babylon 5 fan.
Is this episode better than Matt Babylon 5 episode?
Yes.
Yeah.
Like, even JMS looks at that Babylon 5 episode and says, we wanted
to give the network a monster of the week episode, so they weren't
too scared of us being all sort of political intrigue, and that's
also why we had the boxing episode.
Oh my god.
They had a boxing episode before Galactica did.
Yeah.
And unlike Battlesar Galactica.
There's no hugging, no learning.
It's just hitting me. hugging.
Well, they whistle, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for a romance of many dimensions in flat
line.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us on our website, FlightthroughEntirety
com, where you'll find links to our accounts on Facebook, Twitter
and Mastodon, as well as links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger
Jody Intertara, maximum power, and untitled Star Trek project.
Until next time, remember that when there's a lethal spectral
mummy wandering around your workplace, it's perfectly reasonable
to crawl into a bottle.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Goodbye.
Yeah, good thening.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley
Siheart, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone. theme arrangement by
Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Dangle Yolallis, was recorded on the 30th of April
2023, and released on the 4th of June.
After this week's revelation about Janet Henfrey, we'll be
petitioning Bad World Studios, to create a whole new Doctor Who
subgenre, in which Janet Henfree confronts a series of undead
monsters, including Janet versus a Ghost, Janet versus the Bride
of Frankenstein, and Janet versus John Pertween, Return from the
Dead as a Cyberman.
Uh, I don't know.
Does anyone have a closing statement?
How are we doing?
We've done very good.
I feel like last night.
Yeah.
Have we left stuff out?
No, because it's all very straightforward.
The mummy comes and kills people until it stops.
We talked about...
Christie.
Have we talked about the universal, Charles, the Lemle horror film
The Mummy?
There's really, I watched it.
There's really nothing to say other than it.
This is completely different. refreshing. completely different.
All right.
Well, I think we're done.
I think I'll find a thing.
There's a thing.
It can all be made into a thing.
There was good stuff.
Good stuff.
It's such a great episode.
Two really good episodes today.
It's funny, isn't it?
And the doctor gets to do the, are you my mummy joke as well?
Oh, my God. again.
Again, he does it in the poison sky as well, doesn't he?
Yeah.
Yeah. and I and I really loved, Oh, you really hated your grand.
Oh, and she did poison your pony.
You were right.
And your dog.
That's funny.
I am going to go and watch that immediately so that I can just
take in all of her Janet Henfreeness, which I never know. can't
believe it.
I think she is even into...
I know, I know. crazy.
I think she is old lady.
And then didn't look at anyone.
I think she is very briefly interviewed on the Doctor Who extra
and just kind of goes, you know, it's it's 25 years and I'm back
on Doctor Who.
Awesome.
So good And she was magnificent in Fenrick as well.
So great.